This Walter Benjamin epigram is the only text in the newest book in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection: Daniel Jubb’s Bookcase, a flip book of photographs of a young man opening and closing … a bookcase. It was published in 1994.

At the other extreme is A Trojan History from 1472. Between these two are 14,000 volumes of historic texts. They range from nearly 200 incunabula, through late 17th-century Shakespeares, Restoration drama, early collections of Newton, Defoe, Swift, Johnson and Boswell, originals and translations of Lope da Vega, Cervantes, Descartes and Voltaire, bibles in numerous languages, sermons, political pamphlets, novels, poetry, all manner of specialist works on medicine, botany, topography and travel, to the illustrated private presses of William Morris and others.

Visiting the collection I came across many impressive items, also curiosities. Some of them are reflections on book-collecting: Bibliomania in the Middle Ages by F. Somner Merryweather. Then there are specialist works: Eastern Carpets, The Pleasant Art of Money-Catching, and Old English Drinking Glasses: Their Chronology and Sequence.  And, for a sort of specialist, The Memoirs of Casanova, Privately Printed for Subscribers Only, by the Casanova Society. He was a librarian."

Many of the works are finely illustrated. For instance, Toys (1930) by Cyril W. Beaumont and Eileen Mayo, comprises rhymes for children with bright watercolour images. One reads:

“D stands for Doll, what could be finer?

They’re made of rags, or wood, or china.

Some have black eyes, some have blue;

Some have curly hair like you.

“Some have pink cheeks, some have brown;

Some are the prettiest dressed in town.

Some are short and some are tall;

Some have nothing on at all.”

One strength is Restoration and eighteenth-century drama. I came across The Double Mistake, A Comedy as it is performed at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden (1766). The title page and the dedication to the Duchess of Marlborough are anonymous, but someone has inserted the name Mrs Elizabeth Griffith.

The play begins with Lord Belmont in an apartment of his house, reading a letter. “The more I think of this extraordinary summons, the more I am surpris’d at it. Emily Southern, my near relation, at an inn in London, and desires to see me! I tremble for the cause; for though by no means infected with Spanish jealousy, I look upon it that the honour of every woman in my family lessens or increases mine.”

Now Elizabeth Griffith was a woman born in Wales of Irish parents of that name, who went on to marry an unrelated Mr Griffith. Three of her plays are already in our Salisbury Collection; this one joins them.

I was pleased to find a book from 1917 which touches my own research: Allied Art, A Collection of Works in Modern Art by Artists of the Allied Nations. Listed are works from England, France, Italy, Belgium, Russia, Japan and Serbia. Among the “English” artists are the Belgian-born Anglo-Welsh Frank Brangwyn and Augustus John from Tenby. Works by both are in our National Museum. I also discovered one of the more incongruous titles: The Works of Rabelais (1904) illustrated by Heath Robinson.

There are numerous signed limited editions, such as Chinese Painting by the renowned translator, Arthur Waley; or a racehorse poem Right Royal (1922) by John Masefield, eight years later Poet Laureate. And talking of signatures, many of the older works have charming records of their owners. Sarah Blaisted, her Book May 22, 1755. Underneath is written in a similar, childlike hand, Sarah Seller 1810. A granddaughter perhaps?

Let us put this in a wider context. In the late 19th century, as benefactors built the Cardiff collection, similar events were taking place in Chicago. There too were incunabula, rare books, and religious texts. In international university league tables today Chicago stands at number seven. Across these islands there are copyright libraries in London, Edinburgh and Dublin, with the fine Linen Hall Library in Belfast besides. Wales is proud of its National Library, but it is not in the capital. Of the twenty Russell Group universities, seven are within walking distance – or a short bus ride – of a copyright library. Others – Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow – are blessed with fine historic libraries. This University is proud of its library resources, but the Rare Books take us into a different league.

Humanities in print

A new publication celebrating just some of the stories from the Humanities at the University can now be read online at:

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/research/spotlight/humanities/index.html